Move-in, Orientation, and More.

So yesterday I moved into the dorms (2nd vanReken), and today I (or rather, we, the incoming class) participated in Streetfest, an event that I've grown up around, yet never participated in, more on that later.
Orientation is, put simply, overwhelming. I'm not sure of the exact size of the incoming class that has been here on campus since yesterday, but I can assure you that it is a lot of people. Being from Grand Rapids Christian High, I have a perplexing (if not unique), social challenge, It's been roughly twelve years since I've had to make new friends from scratch which means I'm uncomfortable around people that I don't know, but at the same time, I didn't come to Calvin for "Christian High II - Return of the people you've known since first grade" which makes me uncomfortable around the people that I do know. I'm sure once a routine begins the process of finding the balance between new and old, comfort and discomfort, challenge and reward, will start, but until then I'm in limbo. Orientation started off with some group-building exercises on the commons lawn with our orientation groups (mine is 31). Once we'd tried some name games and standard mixer games, we filed into the CFAC, for the opening session.While we waited in our seats, some very well intending orientation staff, tried to get us "pumped up", I'm an introvert (you're all shocked, I know), and I've gotten "pumped up" for exactly one thing in my memory (A Hank Green concert I got to attend this summer). So there I was, sitting in the back-middle of the CFAC auditorium, music blasting, lights strobeing, surrounded by strangers, with people trying to start a wave (my participation in which could be generously called half-hearted.) After the loud, mostly ridiculous, and I'll be honest, already mostly forgotten, opening session. We broke back down into our smaller orientation groups, when that let out it was 9:13 and I was feeling beat, but before I even got back to my floor, I met the rest of my floor coming out, we sat on the soccer field behind the dorm for another hour, as dorm leadership (Mostly RAs) Introduced the other dorm leadership, and went over rules and guidelines for dorm living. After that meeting, there was a floor meeting, where we played name games, and then broke into rooms to do initial dorm-room assessments, that finished around 11:35 and it was past midnight before I was asleep. This morning I slept in to the late, late hour of nearly 6:40, and after a bit of personal time, headed out to meet my orientation group for breakfast. Then we headed to the CFAC for streetfest chapel, Maaike gave an excellent talk on the meaning and importance of place (the songs were disappointing, not one out of the three songs we sang was older than me.) Again to orientation groups, and then, loading onto a bus that would take us to gilda's club: Grand Rapids, on the west side of town.
The hour grows late again, and my bed calls to me, so I'll finish my reflections on today when I've had a good nights sleep.

-Bastian